This time of year is one of the busiest for sales and packaging agents — the job revolves largely around the indie film space, and film markets around the world are where they do the bulk of their business, to premiere films they put together and auction to buyers. This was more normal 3-10 years ago, but we are currently in a slow and very challenging sales market, for all the same reasons that the strikes are/were happening; companies don’t have a clear idea of their mandates, the pandemic caused a theatrical collapse and therefore many indie distribution companies dissolved, which means less homes for speciality films.
The more prominent markets like Venice, Telluride and Toronto International Film Festivals took place last month. Other markets that sales agents attend and are high-priority are AFM (American Film Market), which takes place in Los Angeles in November, Sundance at the end of January, immediately followed by the Berlin Film Festival. Any of the festivals, including Toronto, that are outside of the United States (with the exception of AFM, where everyone from outside the US comes to), were moments where agents do a lot of their international business because many of the films that they put together are either being funded by foreign pre-sales or by foreign co-productions with foreign producing partners. Agents attend festivals like Berlin or Cannes, and aside from the premieres and parties with clients, agents will have meetings stacked all day long, anywhere from 6-10 days straight because this is the only opportunity to sit down with buyers that live on the other side of the world.
The festivals mentioned are the big ones. There are several film festivals such as Film Art, which is in Asia, and domestic festivals like SXSW, Tribeca and AFI, but they are less robust sales markets.
Attending festivals and meeting with both domestic and international buyers is a huge part of being a sales agent and truly what drove our business: selling films and making money.